| playwright, novelist, and poet

Poetry

I wrote this poem some years ago after experiencing the events it describes while walking on Cannock Chase. It was later included in the pamphlet “Road Kill” which I co-authored with poet and publisher Nadia Kingsley for her Fairacre Press. Recently, during a similar walk, I experienced something like the same events.

AUTUMN RITE

The sound the stags’ antlers make as they lock together in a clearing in the wood above the quarry one morning in October

A hard clattering rattle

With a hollow after-echo

In the wet trees.

The sound of the victorious stag’s voice, heard from further down the quarry in the hidden, wooded valley

Deep, dry, a rasping

Grated booming, as of

Bark cracking

A tree splitting.

The way the herd of does are glimpsed running towards the stag’s voice